Stories
Stories
Raphael Geismar, MBA 2006
For Raphael Geismar, chairman and CEO of Stumec, a French supplier of tools and equipment to the railway industry, the attraction to HBS was part aspiration, part continuity. “In France and everywhere,” Geismar says, “HBS is recognized as the best. Plus, my father attended the School, and arriving 58 years after he did meant something important to me.”
The HBS experience proved “very different from anything I had known in France,” he says. “With professors, the relationships weren’t ‘topdown,’ but more like with peers, people who evolve with you. I remember my finance professor calling me to ask how I was doing. There was nothing wrong—I just hadn’t come to see him yet in his office. That was characteristic of HBS—it’s all about personal interactions.”
A relatively recent HBS graduate, Geismar has already distinguished himself as a young alumni leader, serving as major gift chair for his 5th Reunion—a commitment backed with his own lead gift. He designated his gift to the Dean’s Fund because, he says bluntly, “the School knows better than I what to use it for. HBS is well managed and there is no doubt gifts will be used effectively.” He believes that “giving to HBS has a multiplier effect: when you make a gift, you support other good causes. The people coming to HBS will make an impact all over the world.”